I don't know, maybe I'm a purist of sorts, but it bothers me when the
marketing of songs comes ahead of the artistry of music. I like bands that
write their own songs. I like bands that leave the marketing in the hands of the record company and worry more about writing their material. Granted its important to do a bit of both, but if a singer's heart isn't in the lyrics, it shows. I listened to "The Tuesdays" new album a couple of times through before I read anything about it. The songs seemed empty for the most part, just so much pop fluff. They only co-wrote four of the eleven tracks. Comparisons to "The Bangles," don't seem to bother them, but they grit their teeth at "Spice Girls" label. At first, I thought there was no basis for comparison to the "Spice Girls," but it's clear that the heavy emphasis on marketing, and their good looks, not their music, fuel that notion.

"The Tuesdays" are a Norwegian band. The core members of the band, Hege Solli (guitars), Kristin Werner (keyboards and backing vocals) and May Hole (bass and backing vocals), met in grade school. Together they formed the band "No Limits." They later changed their name to "The Tuesday Girls," banking on getting more gigs if people knew right off they were a girl band. They shortened their name to "The Tuesdays" when Laila Samuels (lead and backing vocals) and Linda Gustafsson (drums and percussion) joined the band.

I expected that the four tracks they co-wrote, "Changing the Moods," "Take Me Home," "I Wish it was Yesterday" and "When You're a Tuesday Girl," to be inferior to the other songs. It seemed there should be some reason to choose songs by other people over their own. I didn't find this to be true. There isn't any way for me to know how much influence their co-writers had on the quality of the songs - they may be total re-writes. In any case, I'm going to focus on these songs first.

The influence of bands like "Abba" and "The Bangles" is clear. The fourth song on the album,  "Changing the Moods," has a soft intro, with just voice and guitar. ELO's influence is heavy in the synthesizer parts. It's goofy and predictable but, perhaps because of that synthesizer influence, I can't help liking it a bit. The theme: a past relationship haunts, leaving the future unreachable. I'd swear I was listening to "The Bangles" when "Take Me Home" started. The song is much like "Changing the Moods," about wanting a lost relationship back, not feeling whole without it.

"I Wish it was Yesterday" has interesting guitar work - more than most of the other songs. Written with S. Crow, the song is the strongest musically on the album. Another broken relationship drives it. It reminds me of songs that aren't coming to mind fully formed, making it more a "Tuesday's" song than anything else here. "When You're a Tuesday Girl" reminds me musically of "Katrina and the Waves." It's simple, anthemic and poppy, an invitation to become a part of their world, but the fade out at the end is rather harsh.

It was tough for me to get by the overly poppy feel to these songs. Track one, "Too Late to be Good," written by C. Brandon, one of the main contributors of songs to this album, is about being female in a male dominated world. The song is a bit disturbing as she sees herself through her date's eyes, a man who only sees her as an object. At first she forms her self image from that, then breaks away from it to form her own. There's an undercurrent of thought beyond pop here that I like, but it nearly becomes lost. Imagine John Mellencamp or Rick Springfield on estrogen for the sound.

The single "It's Up to You," another C. Brandon song, with G. Marshall, is more what I'd expect from a pop song. The lyrics are basic, about a break up and wanting the relationship to continue. There's some Beatle-esque "oohs" in the backing vocals, and it's very bubble gum. I think "Too Late to be Good" would make a better single. "I'll Be Here" slows down the pace a bit. An "ELO" synth sound makes it somewhat interesting, but mostly it's an empty love song; complete with a spoken passage for melodrama.

Sixth up is "What is Love," marking a return to a harder sound, again very Melencamp. It's another love song about loss. "I was Thinking of You" runs a bit deeper, describing feelings about cheating on a long standing relationship. "I can understand you're jealous/ But he didn't touch my heart/ No - he wasn't better/ Not even in the good parts/ I love your sweetness/ But I'm not satisfied/ So I went lookin' for something to fill/ The emptiness inside. . ." The song makes you think because it's obvious that neither lover works for her. She needs to look inside herself, but the song never says that. It bothers me that messages like these are carried in music, leaving the listener with the feeling that this is all there is.

"Wheels" is an awesome song, more poetic than anything else on the album. It rolls along from image to image: "I'm a Betty blue, I'm the man on the moon/ I'm a bit freaked out and a hair out of tune/ They tell me that I might just lose it soon/. . . Sometimes nothing's colder than the sun/ On a bad day/And sometimes nothing warms you/ Like the rain. . ." The heavy "ELO" influence works well here, meshing with "The Tuesdays" sound.

They slow it down again for "Gone with the Wind," another C. Brandon tune. "Damn these photographs/ They go on pretending/ That you and I ended up with a happy ending/ They gave me the same feeling I get when/ I'm watching/ 'Gone with the Wind'. . ." It's an interesting image, unfortunately wasted in a song that has little to redeem it musically, in my opinion. The words just don't fit well with the music.

I have to admit that I didn't want to like, "The Tuesdays." It's kind of like
finding yourself rocking out to "Abba" despite their schlocky sound. For
whatever reason, no matter how bad "Abba" is on analysis, it works. I'm not going to try to figure it out. "The Tuesdays" works in much the same way. Expect some hits from them.